allow them the respect that's due in their years forward. and we join everybody here today to make a commitment to our seniors that will be there to help you and never abandon what years of sacrifice you had for our city. annie chung from self-help for the elderly. (applause) >> hello, everybody, and thank you, mayor, for leading the way to let our san franciscans know that the season of giving is also a season of miracles. i think those of us here in this room with you always feel that, oh, my god, that's not enough turkeys for the food bank, for the needy families and that's not enough food for the hungry seniors that come through our meal site at many of our social service agencies. but yet every time, every time around this year thanksgiving and christmas, we find very, very generous donors and check

suddenly appear like mayor will be delivering 100 turkes, 150 turkeys to the school for that we are very thankful. mayor, we are celebrating thanksgiving with 3,000 of the very low-income seniors in chinatown. and as of now i think that we got all the turkeys covered. thank you very much. [laughter] >> and the gratifying thing is we have a lot of volunteers this year. we have so many volunteers that we had to put a stop last friday and say, we have no more space to put you. so, i think that people feel that around thanksgiving and christmas is not just a time to spend with our own families, but really a time to give back to the community. so, i urge all of you to pass the word that there's a lot of needy elderly and youth and families in the community that is waiting for a little bit of assistance so that they're well on their way to leading a full and productive life.

so, we need to all reach out and dig deeper into our own pockets and find the spare change that we can find this season and turn them into small and big miracles so that people that are in need will have a wonderful thanksgiving and a wonderful christmas. and mayor, thank you for being our passionate leader. and every year gather us around this time to remind people holidays is not just about gift buying, but it's about gift-giving. thank you very, very much. (applause) >> see, as you can see in everybody's remarks, it's really moving to be part of the giving that all these organizations are part of. we'll be getting ready for thanksgiving. i'm excited that tomorrow i'll be carving turkeys at salvation army in st. anthony's and we'll be handing out turkeys to the needy at mission economic development group and the center for young women's

development. and then i'll also be enjoying myself prepping meals for thanksgiving at glide memorial. so, we have thousands of people that got to be helped and served. again, we can't do it without everybody's help. and i ask everyone, please have listen to the people here, you've seen their sacrifices. they are doing god's work. i want to make sure that we have the information given out to the rest of the public how to join in this wonderful effort, how to make san francisco the character of serving and sharing as it should always be. and, so, again, please call 311 or go to our websites. i direct you for all of that and for continuing this wonderful holiday spirit. but most importantly, for caring for each other. thank you very much and have a happy holiday. thank you. (applause)

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>> my name is byron webb. i'm a development director with the port and i want to welcome to heron park. it was built in the wetlands in the bay view community adjacent to the indian basin. it is approximately 22-acres and we are here to celebrate the expansion of the wetlands and also the creation of the first bidirectional bike way in the city and in this neighborhood. with that brief introduction -- the reason that we're here i wanted to introduce the mayor and have him speak to these two important projects for this bay view community. [applause]

>> thank you brian. i know when you worked on redevelopment you have seen things and especially in the southeast sector and this is a great meet up with you and thank you very much. good morning everybody. so it's still team work. yes. and i'm still kind of dazed from all of the celebrations from yesterday, but i am still willing to go ahead and say go giants yet again, but i have to tell you with a story of how even the players i think with all the news broadcasts i think they were genuinely happy, and especially when i saw angel pag an and after tony bennett sang

and i need a picture. this is the most important picture in my life with tony bennett. he didn't want the picture with the world series trophy but with his family and tony ben etd. he was having fun. i think that was the level of fun the players were having with the event yesterday and i want to thank the rest of the city and everybody gets to enjoy these moments when they're unique, but we're going to carry that on. today there is work to be done and announcements to be made and the southeast sector of our city is something i always registered to the city as your mayor we would never abandon and in fact we're making more investments in this neighborhood and heron's head park is the latest investment. it comes out of a two and a half million dollar investment out of a safety bond that we passed years ago and rec and park are almost there with

90% of the expenditures. all of the projects are accounted for and 2.5 million dollars of investment here and corrects access and updates landscaping and opens this place up even for more use and perhaps unlike many of our urban settings i think heron's head park offers probably a unique experience in that apart from many of the trucks that are next door it is relatively a pretty quiet place. you're going to be able to have not only hiking and walking and familyand we have the quarter

mile extension of a gap that was not filled in for bicycle use. that will bring yet additional numbers of people here in a great way and then it sits next door to something that i worked with on for a number of years and that is of course the literacy for environmental justice center, the ego center that we have here that brings a lot of youth into training and education about our waterfront, about the environment, about the balance of nature, and in the urban setting and of course it not have happened on the theme i will talk about the rest of my administration which is the team work that has to happen. we have rec and part that administers the bond. we have the port with its staff and

byron and susan reynolds and working with public works to open up this area with the private sector whether it's ledge or the park advocates or the green space or the blue green advocates and this is all connected when i was taught during my dpb days and we had people walk along the water way and experience the wonderful, wonderful initial resources that we had, so all of these investments. >> >> will bring a lot of great use of open space to this area and not to forget we have a little off lease dog run that is also added in here for our dog lovers which there are countless many in the city and having an area where the dogs can play with their guardians and having a natural place for this to happen. you see all of the

elements happening here and i want to thank the team and the agencies working together and with community and ledge and the department of the environment is here as well (railroad noise). >> yes and all positive activities. the railway station is historic and it will remain that way, so again welcome to heron's head park. by the way for those of you who don't know why it's named this way is because if you ever have a chance to get above this area and see it literally is shaped like a heron's head and this is part of the honoring of our waterfront area. it's a great investment and of course it will lead me to say with the responsible, and this year is

our proposition b which extends another great investment of $195 million to many other areas including the south east sector of open space that we got to take care of, and modernize. this is what rec and park does very well with dpw with all of the capital leadership in the city that i got to work on with the city administrator. we need to take care of the infrastructure in many ways and we are loving our parks and why we want this great investment to continue and this is another small yet important addition. we will have $35 million more of that with the connection with the port and the next bond so it serves as a great example how we use the park bonds to of benefit of all of our users and

residents and especially because we want our southeast sector to continue evolving in a positive way for everybody. it has been a trial for many of the residents here for many years because of the leadership of the different agencies working together with environmental advocates to make sure we strike that right balance we can have the spaces used for the different use and it is enjoyment of the environment at the same time for the residents. thank you for being here with this announcement. we get four things out of this. a dog run, heron's head park with the landscape and wonderful access to it. we have the literacy for justice modernization here and of course we have the bi- directional

lines for the bicycles and thanks for being here and congratulations to everybody. it has been a great part of this collaboration. this great team work and go giants and now go warriors. [applause] >> thank you mayor lee for your leadership for this development. i want to introduce also monique moyer director of the port. who she began -- became director of the port she noticed how much energy and funds were being focused on the northern waterfront and requested whether or not we could do more in the southern waterfront and i think these projects are an example of how we responded to that challenge, so monique moyer executive director. [applause] >> good morning and thank you.

it is wonderful to see so many of our friends and supporters and hard workers here today. how many of you are here at heron's head for the first time? a show of hands. not many. that is terrific news. well welcome back. this is one of the greatest places in the city i am fond of saying. it's visionary. you heard about that from the mayor already and part of it is san francisco moving forward in a way that other cities just don't do. first and foremost other cities do not pass general obligation bonds of this type for a park and none for waterfront parks so we are already ahead of game that way, and we are proud of the generosity of the electoral for supporting that vision. secondly we don't have many parks and in san francisco there are a couple of open spaces but not in the middle much heavy

industry use. this is a working port. work is going on as we speak but it's a place for habitat and a place for our own restoration so it makes it absolutely wonderful for that and you can get here by almost every mode. i would like to say you could take the train and the historic train and i encourage you to ride your bikes and bring your dog. this is the first dog sanctioned area and we're proud of that and i want to say thank you to all the people that made it happen and as mayor lee alluded to it's a lot of people and byron and the rest of the committee and lead by karen paris and friends at the park conservation. we have steve from the engineering group. we have dan -- who i see i missed.

excuse me. we have dpw who did the design for the area. we have them with the living classroom and maybe it was going to be in another area but it's going to be here at the port of san francisco and had the help of a number of agencies and the parks department and keeping as gorgeous and welcoming as it is. this part was not a park for long. originally this was supposed to be a terminal and imagine if we can containers stacked around here. instead we have a place for humans to come and enjoy, dogs to come and enjoy, the children come and learn about the natural habitat about one of the areas that is best weather wise and we are

proud to reinvent ourselves and use our ability to make it all better. i would like to thank the mta with their vision and the blue green way on cargo lane and of course last but not least the park of rec and park and without them we wouldn't be here today having this great celebration and i hope you come back with your dogs, with your families and picnic and enjoy yourself very much so thank you again. [applause] >> thank you monique. thank you for those acknowledgments of the port and staff involved in this project but we want to ask a couple of key partners to speak on these project and their participation and particularly the parks and recreation department, the key partner with the port. as monique mentioned

in 2008 they lead a campaign to get $185 million of park bonds, a portion was made available to the port and used for the blue green way projects. that partnership has lead to ongoing partnerships specifically to the eco center and like the mayor said we are working together in 2012 to get will additional park bonds and with they would like to introduce phil ginsburg director. [applause] >> good morning everybody. so i haven't been able to let it go either. so yesterday our city celebrated a huge victory in the world of sports; right. and today we're celebrating another victory and for the waterfront,

for nature and you can feel it. yesterday after the noise and the craziness -- breathe; right. like today -- you can feel it. it's slower. it's calmer and if you look out there you absorb the place, and we are in one of the most special and beautiful parts of the city and to celebrate an incredible project. san francisco's waterfront is more than just simply the border of our city. in its edge lies san francisco best recognizal opportunities, our most engaging parks and enormous potential to have one of the vibrant waterfronts of the world and in partnership we are doing this along all sides of san francisco for all san franciscos to enjoy. these projects as the mayor and monique said are made possible

by the parks bond. four years ago it was approved by 72% of city voters and allowed us to address more than a billion dollars worth of deferred maintenance needs in our parks and to cultivate what once was an industrial waterfront into something such much more spectacular and if you have been around town you have seen all of the fantastic changes happening to the park and the new recreation center in chinatown, new play grounds and athletic fields and one of the special projects at mission play ground around 24th and valencia. yesterday we had the great pleasure of cutting a ribbon in the richmond. here in district ten there is a park renaissance. we are seeing incredible things happening thanks to the parks bond and we have a new play ground at mclaren park and new

restrooms at bay view hill top and mclaren and the improvements here. since 2010 the port has been an incredible partnership and promoting our youth stewardship program and our program and we have the inaugural class and kids products of this neighborhood and learning environmental education. they are getting paid. it is work and helping to steward the land and learning leadership skills and i want to name a couple of folks from that program. kimberly who runs the vote tear programming and zoey and brenda from green acres. where is brenda? she's not here and carolyn from the port who we have worked incredibly close with. [applause] just to conclude there has been

a lot of talk about team lately. chris bochy said it yesterday and the mayor said it yesterday and this morning. this is a team and great things happen when we work together and looking around the room there are so critical members of the team and putting our parks and rec and open space, the quality of life for san franciscans ahead of self and that includes the port. it includes department of public works. it includes public utilities commission and the local unions and the park alliance and friends at bicycle coalition and the rand off institute and center for environmental yesterday. there are so many incredible partners contributing to making this city better and it's a special day so go team. [applause] >> just wanted to mention a few

other partner who is are key to what the port tried to accomplish here along the waterfront, both here in bay view and throughout, so one of those key members is the coastal conservancy. they contributed $500,000 to the construction of the park back in 1999. in 2010 they contributed another $400,000 toward the construction of the eco center and played a role in the development of the bike way with additional $70,000 so i wanted to introduce amy hudzel from the coastal conservancy to talk a bit about these projects. [applause] >> thank you and thanks for

including me and the coastal conservancy in this event. we are honored to play a role in the work going on here at heron's head and i am also reporting the san francisco bay trail, a close partner of ours. the coastal conservancy -- we are a state agency and our vision is a beautiful and accessible coast line and i think this project really epitomizes what we're trying to achieve in our vision. the passage of park bonds at the state level most recently proposition 84 in 2006 has allowed projects like this to take place around the state, in the city, in the bay area, and along the coast of california, and it allows local organizations and agencies to leverage their local funds, and make those funds go even further

through the application of state bond dollars. the conservancy had a great interest for a long time in improving wildlife habitat and public access to the san francisco bay here in southeast san francisco. we partnered with the bay trail, the port of san francisco, literacy for environmental justice, and many other organizations and agencies to develop the heron's head park, to build the heron's head eco center, and now to plan and construct the bike path and this really grand entrance to heron's head. it's completed a really critical gap in the san francisco bay trail which is a regional trail that circles the entire san francisco bay. it's about 300 miles of it are done of a planned 500-mile loop.

for this project really fits perfectly with our vision to improve access to the san francisco bay and to the california coast, to restore wetland throughout the state and complete the trail in the bay area and i want to thank a few individuals. lara thompson and maureen gaffny at the san francisco bay trail. [applause] and anne buell at the coastal conservancy and those that work with the port of san francisco. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i mean as we have said there are a number of partners that were necessary to get together to make this

happen. the bi-directional bike way as part of the blue green project as we mentioned and it's an important connection from the bay view community to the heron's head park, and to 3rd street and to the gateway park that we will be building next. hopefully we will start that in about a year or so. a key player in making that by way happen was mta. they were involved in every step of the process from design to funding to construction, and i want to introduce damon curtis a senior manager with mta who is representing them. [applause] >> thank you and good morning. i think i just got a promotion but that's great. on behalf of my colleague at the mta. in particular our director ed

risin and those in the street division and my boss on liveable streets and thank you for coming and i appreciate in talking about the importance of the bicycle facility that you see behind you. before i begin i want to acknowledge the cargo bike way manager who is sitting back there. [applause] so i would like to start and i am proud to start by reiterating the fact this is the first -- san francisco's first physically separated two way bike facility so that is a very big thing. it's something to be proud of and i think it deserves a round of applause. [applause] but in addition to being novel it also includes some innovative design features. we have acwaited bicycle sial